Weight Lifting Question...

[Mahonroy]

Hello, just had a question about weight lifting / training if anyone knows. I had a trainer for a while, he ended up being a flake so gave me a refund but I still got information out of him while I was with him. Anyways basically I am eating six meals a day, which consists of about 300-350 grams of protein, and like 4000 calories. Yeah sometimes I miss meals so it varies, but anyways. My goals are to gain muscle and get more cut. I lift mondays, tuesdays, thursdays, and fridays, and the rest are supposedly cardio. Yeah sometimes I miss the cardio but haven't missed the lifting yet. Anyways I have been gaining muscle no problem, but it seems I am not really getting cut, maybe even the opposite lol. When I think about it I meen damn 4000 calories I am surprised I am not fat by now. I was reading about getting more cut/ burning fat, etc. and most say that you need a light calorie diet and cardio excercise. It seems that these two conflict with each other, because I need the calories to gain muscle, but I need less calories if I want to burn fat, so I am just like wtf am I supposed to do? lol Anyways yeah thats my question if anyone can help me out with some info I would be greatly appreatiated. (btw I am mostly focusing on getting cut on my abs the most, but I know that you can't really burn fat in a specific location, so basically to get cut everywhere)

BTW right now I am 6'1.5" and weigh 172 pounds. Maybe about 2-3 months ago I weighed about 190-195, and most of that I lost from minimul excercise, and just streight up not eating much.

Thanks again!

[Vampyrate]

okay, what you are doing now is taking the fat that you have and are gaining and turning that into muscle. instead of building up on protein like you are, ease off to you regular diet and work out just as much as you were, with some carbs for energy whenever you need it. my roommate and i did it last year, and we both gained a lot, though he kept up with it and i didnt.

[Cypher]

heres what you do... back off on all the protein (i was a nutrition freak for awhile and did exactly the same thing). the MOST IMPORTANT meal is the one after working out. now you wanna get cut but build muscle so keep your carbs low before lifting. then after lifting you need to ingest carbs and protein (whey-protein is the best for how it assimilates in like a half hour) then taper off your carbs til the end of the day. make sure you get at least your body weight in protein a day. what you're doing is burning off calories you don't have when yo ulift becaue you aren't ingesting as many calores but afterwards you're providing your muscles with protein and carbs to recuperate... any questions?

[Mahonroy]

A little confused, but seem to be understanding a bit better...
back off on all the protein
you need to ingest carbs and protein (whey-protein is the best for how it assimilates in like a half hour)

This confused me just a little bit. Am I taking in too much protein is that the problem?

what you're doing is burning off calories you don't have when yo ulift becaue you aren't ingesting as many calores

Currently I am burning off calories I don't have? Or I should not take in as much calories so I can burn off calories I don't have (basically burn fat instead)?

I have been taking 2 protein shakes a day. Normally I had been taking one before and one after. It consists of whey protine, muscle milk, and L-glutamine. The rest of the time is basically egg whites, chicken breasts, salmon, oatmeal, rice cakes with penut butter, mixed vegitables, etc. spread throughout the day.

[Cypher]

unused protein will turn into fat. you are trying to get cut. which means don't ingest carbs BEFORE LIFTING but afterwards your body NEEDS calores to replenish and rebuild. as a rule get one gram of protein per pound of body weigh. also. break your meals down into about 6 little meals a day. smaller meals but eating more keeps your metabolism high. just make sure you divide your protein and carbs up evenly between each meal. so say you're 150 pounds. you want 150 grams of protein per meal. make sure you get at least 26g of protein per meal then. this is probably confusing. if you're still confused go to www.bodybuilding.com there are loads of articles there to read thro. thats what i did i just kept reading and reading and reading which is why i understand it pretty well.

[Minnie101]

i am 6 feet, used to weigh 160....now i weigh 200. all i did was eat more(i ate anything i could get my hands on) i ate 6 times a day also(no supplements at all). i just ate regularly, but it was all healthy foods. its just b/c when you work out you increase your metabolism, so more food is ok.
but 4000 calories does sound high, try 3500. my workout routine is mon-lift, tues-cardio, wed-lift, thurs-cardio, fri-lift, sat-cardio. i'll do upper body twice a week and lower body once, and then next week ill do lower body twice a week and upper body once. you can actually burn fat in one particular area...just start doing burn-outs, or just lower your weights and really increase your repetitions. your workout routine sounds like you dont let your muscles rest, but i dont know what muscle groups you are working out during those days.
plus when you workout, try to mix things up everyweek, or at least every other week. what im trying to say is when you workout in a routine(like your workout order is chest and then shoulders, then arms) your muscles tend to get in a stagnant position. just try mixing it up and keep your muscles guessing.
just try whatever makes you comfortable...i mean no one should really tell you what to do, just suggest and give advice.
also, if you arent allergic to almonds, try putting that into your diet. they have something in them thats been "tried and true" that helps repair muscles.

[05XDGLS]

If you are trying to build muscle, a balanced diet is the most important thing. You can supplement this with protein. But if you are trying to increase your definition, you have 2 things to fight. First you have to get rid of your fat between your muscles and your skin. And then you need to work on tighenign the skin to your muscle, or increase the size of your muscles to fill the space where the fat used to be.

Fat will not turn into muscle. Fat is a connective tissue that is composed of cells that store energy in the form of fat (it is not easy to burn, and it will not burn untill you are deprived of carbohydrates because carbohydrates require less energy per mole to break down for energy, therefore they will burn first.) When you work out, you aren't actually increasing the number of muscle cells, if you are a mature adult, the number of muscle cells you have will never increase they will only get larger.

The way i have always heard to try to get bigger and increase definition is to do a short cardio that really challenges you before you work out, this is not a jog, this is a track meet pace for a half mile, this will get your heart rate up. Then 3 times a week do a "cardio workout".

Now for building your muscles, every person is different.
I work my chest and triceps together because well when you bench you use your triceps, I do these on Monday and Thursday. Monday includes mostly low rep high weight, and 5 sets of each technique. I also alternate between one week doing flat bench and the next week doing incline.
I work my biceps and back together on Tuesday and Friday in the same manner as above.
I work my shoulders (deltoids and trapezius muscle) on wednesday.

I do light leg workouts 3 times a week,

And then for fun, find a sport to play atleast once a week.

[Estopatitiana]

ok you being 6' 1" and 172 pounds puts your basal metabolic rate at about 1500-2000 calories depending on how active you are and how old..."basal metabolism" is how much calories you burn just during sleep/or when you are inactive...So if you were the average american who doesnt really exercise...based on your activity level you would need to eat about 3,000 calories also based on your weight/age/etc. eating this much is just to maintain a normal weight and not gain any mass wether it be muscle or fat...Now in order to gain weight simply increase you caloric intake of anything as long as its more calories..like the 4,000 calorie diet..thats great..but your probably eating fatty foods if you say your not getting cut...anyways..heres what i would do..i would keep working out vigorously like you are doing with the anerobic exercise(lifting weights)..and i would do more cardio(aerobic)..wich will help burn more calories/fat faster...and i would decrease my caloric intake a little by about 500 calories until you started to see yourself becomeing "cut" or losing fat..The reason being is your body will burn the fat first, for energy to make up for the lost calories in your diet..and once you burn all the fat you can probably start back up to the high calorie diet and work your *** off, and all of that extra mass that comes from your food will be imediate energy that will be used to fuel your muscles and not stored as fat....as long as you remain more active, if you sat a round and watched the tube you body would realize that your not doing anyhting and see no need to burn the fat, and would store it up....now i said you can eat anything as long as its more calories, to an extent. it honestly doesnt matter a whole lot about wich is better for gaining muscle, protien carbs etc..although you want a varied diet you shouldnt just eat 5,000 caliroes of oranges becasue you would be missing many other vital nutrients you body needs, so eat a varied but healthy diet..things that are bad are milk based products, if you want calcuim drink oj with calcuim, as a supplement you could drink the weight gainer wich is milk whey in a more helthy form than cheese and mcdonalds shakes.. people will probably disagree Im basing this off of what i see in pigs..a 5 pound pig can grow to 300 pounds in 6 months just on corn/soybean based feed.. for every 3 pounds of feed they eat they gain one pound of flesh...just on corn and soybeans and some xtra mineral etc.. a pigs stomach is more like a humans than any other animal. and they metabolize food in an almost identical fashion as humans..so you dont have to go eat the 22oz porterhouse every night to gain weight...heres it in simple terms....extra calories+tons of anerobic+aerobic excersize= lots of muscle and a healthy heart wich will make you a long lived ladies man.....im sure someone has a better plan but this is just what ive known with my background and experience trying to gain weight

[SWortham]

If you are trying to build muscle, a balanced diet is the most important thing. You can supplement this with protein. But if you are trying to increase your definition, you have 2 things to fight. First you have to get rid of your fat between your muscles and your skin. And then you need to work on tighenign the skin to your muscle, or increase the size of your muscles to fill the space where the fat used to be.
True.

Fat will not turn into muscle. Fat is a connective tissue that is composed of cells that store energy in the form of fat (it is not easy to burn, and it will not burn untill you are deprived of carbohydrates because carbohydrates require less energy per mole to break down for energy, therefore they will burn first.) When you work out, you aren't actually increasing the number of muscle cells, if you are a mature adult, the number of muscle cells you have will never increase they will only get larger.
Also true.



However, I'm going to offer a slightly different strategy for how you go about this...

Most everybody has the ability to gain muscle mass and lose fat at the same time. But not everybody can do that for very long or very successfully.

What will probably work better for you is to bulk up, and then go on fat loss. Each goal requires different training techniques so it's usually more effective to keep them somewhat separate. You want to minimize your fat gains during bulking but not so much that it hinders your muscle gains. Once you reach around 15% bodyfat, you can go on fat loss until you reach 8% BF. During fat loss, you will need to reduce your caloric intake and increase your cardio but not so much that you lose muscle.

Then if you're still not satisfied then do another round of bulking and then fat loss and so on until you reach your goal. Another good thing about this method is that it helps prevent plateaus in your gains. :)

I'm on Anthony Ellis' "Gaining Mass" program, and what I described is essentially what I'm doing, although I haven't had to go on fat loss yet. But I'm at around 13% body fat right now and will need to start losing some fat soon. I keep close track of my progress with some body fat calipers and by weighing myself every week.

[Mahonroy]

So what would happen if I continued to lift like I normally do, but instead only take in like 1000 calories a day, mostly protein? Just thinking what would happen if I lift like mad and don't eat all that much.

[SWortham]

More lifting doesn't necessarily mean more muscle. In fact, you could easily lose muscle working out that much while only eating 1,000 calories a day. Not only would you be overtraining, your muscles won't have the nutrition they need to rebuild.

Also, be careful when it comes to eating too much protein. Individuals who do not work out consistently don't need that much protein, but a good amount for a serious weight lifter would be around 30% protein / 40% carbs / 30% fat. If you consume too much protein, you can just make it harder on yourself (or your kidneys). You need carbs to metabolize the protein. And you need the essential fatty acids for a plethora of reasons.

[Mahonroy]

Awsome, sorry just one more question: If for whatever reason I wake up a morning when later that day I am supposed to lift, but I already know that I won't be able to, should I eat lightly for the rest of the day since I won't be exercising, or should I continue to have the same diet that day anyways?

[SWortham]

Well, typically you should eat about the same amount of calories from day to day. The only exception is the post-workout drink you should consume immediately after your workout on weight training days. I drink Ultra Fuel which is 400 calories. It'll put a stop to the rise in cortisol levels following a workout, which can make a big pay off in muscle growth.

[Munky]

Wow, you guys know what you're talking about for sure.

[Cypher]

dude!!! this is an old thread. i remember this from when i first joined.

[evan938]

holy no-point-to-bump-a-thread post batman!

[Cypher]

well now that its up. hows the training been going for you matt?